Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

Neanderthal temple work


Recommended Posts

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Teancum said:

It is the same issue for any species that evolved.  So why is it relevant?

Because that's the basic question @MikeFoxtrot is asking. He's asking "do Neanderthals need temple ordinances" but the real question is "were they human?" It's made uncomfortable by the idea that "humans" would at one point have been born from and immediately associate with non human creatures which were only minutely different from them, if at all.

All that I'm saying is that evolutionary theories have to grapple with that too, especially given the human exceptionalism which, in my view, is not only empirically observable but is a critical element of any functioning society. At one point the "human-nonhuman" line was very thin, but it necessarily had to exist, and that's generally uncomfortable.

Edited by OGHoosier
Posted
12 hours ago, Fether said:

I run a very serious and Vehemently anti-Neanderthal organization. We are meeting outside the SLC temple This next Monday night to protest the potential recognition of sub-human species.

geico-so-easy-a-caveman-can-do-1050816974.gif

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Teancum said:

THe scriptures are not evidential.  They make a claim but do not provide evidence.

Not scientific evidence anyway!

Read Alma 32

The results of your "experiment" is the EXPERIENCE of how it works in a context

 THE EVIDENCE IS SPIRITUAL IN A SPIRITUAL CONTEXT , WHEN WE SEEK SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.

IT'S ABOUT FINDING YOUR PURPOSE FOR LIVING, SCIENCE CANNOT TELL YOU THAT. ;)

 

Edited by mfbukowski
Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

Because that's the basic question @MikeFoxtrot is asking. He's asking "do Neanderthals need temple ordinances" but the real question is "were they human?" It's made uncomfortable by the idea that "humans" would at one point have been born from and immediately associate with non human creatures which were only minutely different from them, if at all.

All that I'm saying is that evolutionary theories have to grapple with that too, especially given the human exceptionalism which, in my view, is not only empirically observable but is a critical element of any functioning society. At one point the "human-nonhuman" line was very thin, but it necessarily had to exist, and that's generally uncomfortable.

For all we know there could be whale prophets singing whale songs that are "scripture "

Read "What is it like to be a bat?" one of the most important philosophical articles ever! Seriously! 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314240835_What_is_it_like_to_be_a_bat-a_pathway_to_the_answer_from_the_integrated_information_theory

Edited by mfbukowski
Posted
12 hours ago, Fether said:

I run a very serious and Vehemently anti-Neanderthal organization. We are meeting outside the SLC temple This next Monday night to protest the potential recognition of sub-human species.

My lawyer will be in touch with your lawyer.

 

Posted
1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

For all we know there could be whale prophets singing whale songs that are "scripture "

Read "What is it like to be a bat?" one of the most important philosophical articles ever! Seriously! 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314240835_What_is_it_like_to_be_a_bat-a_pathway_to_the_answer_from_the_integrated_information_theory

I've read Nagel's original "What's It Like To Be A Bat" and found it very insightful. I have to say that I'm not very persuaded by integrated information theory.

Posted
13 hours ago, Teancum said:

THe scriptures are not evidential.  They make a claim but do not provide evidence.

There is a difference between evidence and scientific evidence, certainly. Historians most definitely do use textual commentary as "evidence" for their investigations. But, that's a rabbit hole for another time.

I'm not too worried about trying to persuade you. The doctrine concerning  has been clearly laid out and I rather think you understand what is being said. Temple work is only done for Ben adam. If anything changes, we'll be sure to let you know. :)

Posted
6 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

I've read Nagel's original "What's It Like To Be A Bat" and found it very insightful. I have to say that I'm not very persuaded by integrated information theory.

Oh, agree totally. It seems backwards! It starts taking scientism and Cartesian mechanism as axiomatic, and then works on scientifically defining a WORD? As if words are more "real" than experience??  Starting with mechanisms to describe experience as defined by the word "consciousness"?  

At least that's my take on it.  Could be wrong of course, but it's one rabbit hole I am not interested in exploring!

Posted
On 6/27/2022 at 3:14 PM, The Nehor said:

The thing I never understood about this comic is whose side they are on. I mean, the implied meaning is that the apologists are wrong but it also makes apologists look awesome and amazing.

I would say being able to look at all of the evidence and figure out the mental gymnastic routines that make it work is amazing.

Posted (edited)
On 6/27/2022 at 5:42 PM, OGHoosier said:

That doesn't answer the question. If humans diverged from their predecessors, when did it happen? If you believe in incremental changes, then you accept that each passing generation was basically the same as the one right before it with only minute differences. And yet, somewhere along the line, humans came into being when they previously were not. When did that happen? Which generation became "human" when their parents were not? It had to happen somewhere in there. 

I'm not even trying to dispute evolution. I'm just saying that the question @MikeFoxtrot poses does not present a unique challenge to the Latter-day Saints. Anybody who believes in human evolution will have to come up with an answer for it. 

It seems that some of the Latter-day Saints on this thread are using a different definition of "Human" than MikeFoxtrot is. For the Saints, a "human" is a descendent from Adam. Mike, I believe, is using the following mainstream definition, which also answers the question about which generation became "human."  (short answer: the first "human" came into existence about 2.5 million years ago, and is the ancestor of all humans including Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo rudolfensis, etc.).

Quote

Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched together under the heading ‘genus’ (plural genera). Lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars are different species within the genus Panthera. Biologists label organisms with a two-part Latin name, genus followed by species. Lions, for example, are called Panthera leo, the species leo of the genus Panthera. Presumably, everyone reading this book is a Homo sapiens – the species sapiens (wise) of the genus Homo (man).

Genera in their turn are grouped into families, such as the cats (lions, cheetahs, house cats), the dogs (wolves, foxes, jackals) and the elephants (elephants, mammoths, mastodons). All members of a family trace their lineage back to a founding matriarch or patriarch. All cats, for example, from the smallest house kitten to the most ferocious lion, share a common feline ancestor who lived about 25 million years ago.

Homo sapiens, too, belongs to a family. This banal fact used to be one of history’s most closely guarded secrets. Homo sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from animals, an orphan who has no family, no cousins and – most importantly – no parents. But that’s just not the case. Like it or not, we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes. Our nearest living relatives include chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The chimpanzees are the closest. Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.

Skeletons in the Closet

Homo sapiens has kept hidden an even more disturbing secret. Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilised cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and sisters as well. We are used to thinking about ourselves as the only humans, because for the last 10,000 years, our species has indeed been the only human species around. Yet the real meaning of the word human is ‘an animal belonging to the genus Homo’, and there used to be many other species of this genus besides Homo sapiens. Moreover, as we shall see in the last chapter of the book, in the not so distant future we might again have to contend with non-sapiens humans. To clarify this point, I will often use the term ‘Sapiens’ to denote members of the species Homo sapiens, while reserving the term ‘human’ to refer to all members of the genus Homo.

Humans first evolved in East Africa about 2.5 million years ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus, which means ‘Southern Ape’. About 2 million years ago, some of these archaic men and women left their homeland to journey through and settle vast areas of North Africa, Europe and Asia. Since survival in the snowy forests of northern Europe required different traits than those needed to stay alive in Indonesia’s steaming jungles, human populations evolved in different directions. The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

Humans in Europe and western Asia evolved into Homo neanderthalensis (‘Man from the Neander Valley’), popularly referred to simply as ‘Neanderthals’. Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western Eurasia. The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, ‘Upright Man’, who survived there for close to 2 million years, making it the most durable human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2 million years is really out of our league.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (pp. 4-6)

Edited by Analytics
Posted
On 6/28/2022 at 6:58 AM, Nofear said:

Temple work is only done for Ben adam. If anything changes, we'll be sure to let you know. :)

Personally, I think that if anyone can get a Neanderthal on their family tree, with the appropriate name, birth date, and birth place, that they should be allowed to do the temple work. 🙂

Posted
4 hours ago, Vanguard said:

Oh my - how I miss those old Geico commercials! Stroke of genius. : )

Oh man…complete opposite reaction for me.

Posted
On 6/27/2022 at 7:53 AM, Fether said:

Because they look different than us and are stupid

On 6/27/2022 at 8:10 AM, Fether said:

Because they are dead and we are alive. And they look different than us. Hairy man apes don’t deserve temple ordinances.

Such rigor. Thanks for… participating.

Posted

 

On 6/27/2022 at 8:39 PM, mfbukowski said:

As usual trying to figure out the science is a dead end, but of course around here it will be at least a 10 pager

;)

 

Can you explain what you mean by figuring out the science being a dead end

Posted

 

On 6/27/2022 at 5:20 PM, Stargazer said:

The only facts I have are that homo sapiens is a species which God says was created in His image. God has said nothing about neanderthalensis. If neanderthalensis has a path to exaltation, we cannot know anything about it because we have been told nothing about it.

I don’t recall god being so specific about which men were created in his image. Isn’t it possible that Neanderthals, which would likely be almost unrecognizable from modern humans, were created in the image of god?

On 6/27/2022 at 5:20 PM, Stargazer said:

What I understand about the purpose of this earth is this: that God created it as a venue for testing His children to see which would be worthy of exaltation. If this earth was a testing ground for neanderthalensis or denisova as well, or for what purpose, we have no way of knowing. I expect that His purposes suffice for Him, though.

Is the rest of biological life is merely a backdrop for this test? An antagonist?

Posted
On 6/27/2022 at 8:44 PM, OGHoosier said:

Because that's the basic question @MikeFoxtrot is asking. He's asking "do Neanderthals need temple ordinances" but the real question is "were they human?" It's made uncomfortable by the idea that "humans" would at one point have been born from and immediately associate with non human creatures which were only minutely different from them, if at all.

I’m convinced that Neanderthals and humans shared a common ancestor. I’m also convinced that they were as human as modern humans, but geographically separated for enough time for them to develop different traits and characteristics.

On 6/27/2022 at 8:44 PM, OGHoosier said:

All that I'm saying is that evolutionary theories have to grapple with that too, especially given the human exceptionalism which, in my view, is not only empirically observable but is a critical element of any functioning society. At one point the "human-nonhuman" line was very thin, but it necessarily had to exist, and that's generally uncomfortable.

I’m not convinced that humans are definitionally exceptional. Why do you believe this is empirically observable? Also, why do you believe that human/non-human delineations must exist?

Posted
8 minutes ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

 

I don’t recall god being so specific about which men were created in his image. Isn’t it possible that Neanderthals, which would likely be almost unrecognizable from modern humans, were created in the image of god?

Is the rest of biological life is merely a backdrop for this test? An antagonist?

Of course it is possible that Neanderthals were created in the image of God. What is your take on it?

I take biological life, as I see it in this mortal probationary life, to be a process for maintaining "separably" connected spirit and element. The hope in Christ is that spirit and element will be inseparably connected in the resurrection, so that the process for maintaining immortality would involve many components of what we observe and describe as biological life.

 

Posted
7 minutes ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

I’m convinced that Neanderthals and humans shared a common ancestor. I’m also convinced that they were as human as modern humans, but geographically separated for enough time for them to develop different traits and characteristics.

I’m not convinced that humans are definitionally exceptional. Why do you believe this is empirically observable? Also, why do you believe that human/non-human delineations must exist?

I would say that many delineations are the products or consequences of covenants in a mortal sphere, and whether a life form can make them, and/or which ones they can make. Not all doctrine is explained, but Adam must have named the animals (and plants?) according to some criteria or delineation, even if the story is taken allegorically and in illustrating a principle.

Posted
4 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Of course it is possible that Neanderthals were created in the image of God. What is your take on it?

I am more inclined to believe gods are made in the image of men than I am to believe that men are made in the image of any gods. That said, I think that, were there a creator-god interested in producing mortal animals in his image, and if we claim knowledge of a certain species being created in that image, to me, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that any species that has common ancestors, is almost identical, and is able to have viable offspring with this god species could also be created in the image of god.

Posted
53 minutes ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

I am more inclined to believe gods are made in the image of men than I am to believe that men are made in the image of any gods. That said, I think that, were there a creator-god interested in producing mortal animals in his image, and if we claim knowledge of a certain species being created in that image, to me, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that any species that has common ancestors, is almost identical, and is able to have viable offspring with this god species could also be created in the image of god.

Our religion (where faith passes as knowledge, or where the two function as the same thing, or are two forms of the same thing, or corroborating mental states of the same mind) doesn’t claim that God (plural) produced mortal animals in his image, but that he created Adam (male and female) in his image, and other things not in his image (see Genesis). Interpretations of that doctrine can certainly vary, which renders the communicated covenants and spiritual experiences, and not our biological genesis and nomenclature, to be the means to identify his heirs. Given this is an imperfect world, reasonable facsimiles and perceptions of his image would count.

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

 

Can you explain what you mean by figuring out the science being a dead end

Short explanation:  We cannot understand God using science.

We cannot make experimental observations.  By definition He is far above our understanding, or would not be God.

It would be like an ant trying to study quantum mechanics.

Edited by mfbukowski
Posted
1 hour ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

I don’t recall god being so specific about which men were created in his image.

Weren't there, were you? Looks like it was Adam and Eve who were made in His image, not some Neanderthal. Nothing was said about any other being. Are you going to argue from omission? I.e. since they weren't mentioned, of course they must be included because ... reasons?

1 hour ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

Isn’t it possible that Neanderthals, which would likely be almost unrecognizable from modern humans, were created in the image of god?

Sure, it's possible, and for all I know they have completed their test, as a species, and have moved on. They're not here any longer, in case you've missed it, and only remnants of their DNA exist in ours. Supposedly.

I am not at all sure, however, if I have understood you correctly. Your words, "which would likely be almost unrecognizable from modern humans," are unclear. Are you saying that Neanderthals are similar enough to humans to be lumped in with them, or the opposite? 

1 hour ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

Is the rest of biological life is merely a backdrop for this test? An antagonist?

Yep. Absolutely. In fact, the entire Universe is the backdrop. Although outside this solar system, the rest of the universe is only tenuously tangential to our corner of it. 

Just how familiar are you with Latter-day Saint theology? You sound very much like someone who is quite limited in his understanding of it. 

And to be honest, this entire topic sounds like a rather ham-handed attempt to mock Christian beliefs. 

Are you, by some chance, familiar with an old user of this forum who hasn't posted in a really long time? He called himself 44Foxtrot. 

Posted
1 hour ago, MikeFoxtrot said:

I am more inclined to believe gods are made in the image of men than I am to believe that men are made in the image of any gods. That said, I think that, were there a creator-god interested in producing mortal animals in his image, and if we claim knowledge of a certain species being created in that image, to me, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that any species that has common ancestors, is almost identical, and is able to have viable offspring with this god species could also be created in the image of god.

Suppose the "image of God" is the image of a perfect, ideal, image of perfection of that certain species, designed so that each species could have a mental image, assuming such a thing is even understandable to that particular species, to provide a Standard of Perfection of action, thought and intent of that Ideal Image?

What if, as Plato might have thought, that God IS the image/form/ substance of the Ideal Human, to be seen as if we all had an absolutely Perfect Father?

Suppose Jesus IS that Image for US?  Then suppose Jesus REALLY DID HAVE A FATHER who is an Ideal Father

And so the paradigm/ story grows about what characteristics that Ideal Image Father would need to have to Be "real"?

And so if we were alien Zorks and wanted to be perfect Zorks, we would see that Ideal Zork as God, etc?

And then suppose that is the case, but our Father is the only God we need to worry about listening to...?

 

 

Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Looks like it was Adam and Eve who were made in His image, not some Neanderthal. 

Oh come on!

I saw this guy walking down the street the other day... ;)

https://images.app.goo.gl/vPSzMbGxifCQQNNt9

Edited by mfbukowski
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...